Page 64 of Thief of Hearts

He grinned at me and I felt some of my annoyance slip away. I waved my hand toward the track. “I can’t believe a thief knows how to race chariots.”

“It is the sport of kings, is it not? And I am a king.”

Ha. He was as much of a king as I was a princess. I shook my head at him. He was far too attached to the title he had granted himself.

The announcer stood in the middle of the arena on a raised dais and welcomed the crowd to the stadium. I again heard the voices of women cheering. That made me glad, that it hadn’t been a onetime situation and they were here today. Then he announced that the sponsors had contributed teams of expertly trained horses for the event and that each competitor would be assigned one.

The owner of the winning team would receive a large sum of money and a golden laurel wreath.

All the reward with none of the risk.

The race would be shorter than chariot races normally were—the announcer said we were to do four laps, just as we had with the footraces earlier.

I studied the track. I didn’t know how many competitors remained, but it was too many for all of us to race together. We would all fit, but it would be deadly. There would be accidents. Axles would bend, reins would snap, chariots would be driven into the breakwalls. There would be shipwrecks, as my mother called the massive pileup of broken chariots, littering the racetrack before this was done.

My attendant came over to lead me to my team. I turned to Zain. “I would wish you good luck, but . . .”

“Anything but that,” he said with a wink, following his own attendant.

The announcer started calling out the names of the competitors and the men who owned each chariot team. I tuned it out as we arrived at my chariot. I inspected it quickly. It was finely crafted but as light and flimsy as every other chariot. They were designed for speed and speed alone.

The front of the chariot curved up, the back was entirely open, and it had two wheels. There were clogs built into the floor to hold my feet in place. I had seen many drivers thrown from their chariots when they hit a bump. It was a safety precaution.

Much as my knife was. I was planning to wrap the reins around my waist to give me better control. If something happened, I needed to be able to cut them so that I didn’t get dragged to my death.

“If I may offer you a suggestion,” the attendant said, “you should leave your shield here, along with the rest of your armor. No one expects you to actually wear it while racing.”

Because the weight of it would slow me down. But my grandmother always came into battle with me and I wasn’t going to leave her out of this one. “Thank you for your suggestion. Do you have any treats for the horses?”

He handed me four root vegetables that I didn’t recognize. I went over to introduce myself to the horses. There were two yoke horses in the middle, eager and bold, ready to leap into the fray. They would be responsible for how fast and how hard we went. The trace horses flanked them on the outside. These were usually the worrying type, and it was their keen sense of self-preservation that would prevent us from hitting walls and other chariots. They would steer and keep us stable while making turns.

I offered each horse a vegetable and pet them, talking to them gently. I asked them to be fast and safe, and to help me win. They nickered and nudged me, presumably for more treats. The one good thing about the teams being assigned was that it put everyone at the same disadvantage—no one would be familiar with their chariot or their horses.

It also meant that I wouldn’t have to worry about any “improvements” on the chariots. Like a row of spikes jutting from one of the wheels.

While I had experience in a chariot with a horse, it had been a single horse. Not four. I’d never raced at all, let alone with a team this size. I had watched many races growing up—chariot racing was a favorite of my mother’s. She had spent years explaining everything to me.

All I needed to do was implement all the lessons she had taught me.

I heard her voice in my head: “The most important thing is to be the first one to the turning post. Securing the inside line will give you the race. It will be tempting to stick to the outer track, as it is safer, but it is longer and the only way to win is to face the risks of the inner track.”

With only four laps, there wouldn’t be time to hang back and then try to outrace everyone to the end. I would have to make a move immediately—get out front and stay there.

I would have to balance pushing for speed while also keeping all of us safe. The horses had to work together, so I hoped this team had raced as a unit before. It was a good thing I enjoyed multitasking—I would have to watch my competitors, anticipate their actions, and constantly shift my strategies to deal with whatever they threw at me.

Because chariot racing wasn’t all that different from pankration. While we were forbidden from deliberately running into other chariots, nearly everything else was allowed. We could whip our fellow competitors or pull them from their chariots, attack them with a weapon.

The audience usually loved when that happened.

I climbed into the chariot, inserting my feet into the base. The attendant handed me the reins and I took them, tying them around my waist.

“Here,” he said. He was trying to hand me a whip.

“I don’t whip horses,” I told him.

“But you’ll lose,” he said, aghast.

“Then I’ll lose.” I took the reins in my hands and tested their strength, their tension. The attendant led my horses over to the spot that had been assigned to me. Each team was put into a stall that angled away from the starting line, and a tight cord held the door in front of me in place. When it was my turn to go, it would drop.